I’m barely human. I’m more like a creature; to me, everything gives off a scent! Thoughts, moments, feelings, movements, words left unsaid, words barely spoken; they all have a distinct sense, distinct fragrances! Both a smell and a touch! To inhale is to capture, to experience! I can perceive and I can “touch” in so many odd ways! And so I am made up of all these scents, all these feelings! An illumination of nerve endings!

I show you my photos, because when I look at photos, in them I have caught an aroma, each one exciting, and I share these photos with you because I want you to inhale! I want these scents to become a part of you, too!

And what I write...they are encapsulated aromas that I pick up, and I share this with you, because I want you to inhale what I’m inhaling, I want you to smell this scent.

I don’t think I really have a respect for time. If I have met you once and to me you are a true friend, then in my soul you will remain my true friend for life and in my life the few memories that we have will replay themselves in my mind to make up for your absence and to me you will be a best friend. A true friend. But even if we share the same blood in our veins but towards me you only have envy and vile intentions, the blood that we share in our veins will to me mean nothing. I really don’t think that I have a respect for time. If I see you across the street, look into your eyes and then feel the blood in my flesh rush to my face and warm all my extremities, and you look into my eyes and your veins pulsate under your skin; then with you I have fallen in love! I have loved you, even if those were but a few moments that I shared with you from across the street that will never come back to me again, and I will hope for you; hope that at any given time in the future you could be standing in front of the street and looking into my soul again, wanting me. I will hope for you and I will love you; even if I only knew you for a few moments and have never felt your touch. But if you spend twelve years with me and touch me every day, look into my eyes and do not know me, I will not love you. I will not love you even if time has been given to us. I will not love you if when you look into my eyes you do not see me and I will not love you though you hold me close and try to make me love you, if you cannot find me like the one who can find me within a few moments in time, then I will not love you.

I am overjoyed to receive the first blogged book review of my novella Saint Paul Trois Châteaux: 1948. As I read the review, my eyes began to well up with tears.

There is no feeling comparable to the feeling that I get when I feel that someone has truly understood and truly felt and for a while has truly lived in what I have written.

I have received book reviews before for my novella, on Amazon and Goodreads, but this is the first blogged book review which means that someone has dedicated a post on their blog to review my book and in doing so, has told all their followers and friends and visitors about the whole experience with my words on ink and paper. This means so much to me, because I am a one-man-band but my parade grows more and more colorful and more and more musical when other people join in on it! I rely on word-of-mouth.

I am so thankful and there's not much that I can say. I didn't send Sares a free copy of my book, she bought a copy of my book, herself. Please visit Sares (Sareski) to read her review of my book. She keeps a very creative blog that I do enjoy very much visiting, where she can share her shabby-chic creations of vintage and antiques and everything else that is ticklish and adorable. Visiting her blog puts a smile on my face, I tell her, that I would love to own a shoppe like hers one day and immerse myself in all things lovely all the time!

An unknown someone once said: “Necessity is the mother of all invention.” I feel like this sentence accurately depicts my life. I constantly feel as though I am being pushed off the edge of rocky cliffs in the universe. I try to step backwards and find my footing but I can’t! There is a big hand steadily pressing me towards the edge of the cliff and try as I might, I am destined to fall off of it! At first, I curse and deny whatever I believe in, for allowing me to find myself in this position and its in a rage that I turn around, kick the hand that pushes me, and then JUMP! I throw myself off of that cliff!

But I can see that it’s during these times, during these “throws” that I burst and give birth to stars! I tell you, there are some stars in the sky with my blood in them! And it’s during these throws that I frantically unfurl my wings and try to fly! I may have learned how to fly already, but there’s always a new wind to master at every new height, at every new altitude. When there’s nowhere else to go, you are forced to throw yourself and at first you will feel betrayed and forsaken. But I have learned that the big hand which pushes you is actually trying to make you see: “You can go so much further, you can fly so much higher, you can give birth to stars; you can put stars in the sky!”

The conception of each star was at the point of no return; of a desperate soul struggling to master the winds!

I'm not going to be sharing as much of my writings on here, as before. I am trying to keep my writings unpublished until they are published in paper and ink. I find it unprofessional to publish in a book all the contents of a writer blog, I believe the blogs and the books should have a discernible distinction. At the moment, I am hoping to publish my second book of poetry and prose in the future, which will be the merging of three manuscripts of my poetry and prose, most of which has never been shared with anyone before. I don't have the resources nor the time to publish now, but one day in the future I will. It's hard for me to hold myself back from sharing my writings, because I have a nearly uncontrollable urge to share what I write, the moment that I write it! But, I think that I am coping better now with the issue of self-control regarding this. Although, this piece here I just wrote some 20 minutes ago, and I have decided to share it with all of you now! I hope that you learn from it, and love it as well!

Share my writings with your friends and family, encourage them to support me as well, join my facebook page and help spread the word; simple gestures and efforts like that are always appreciated very much. ♥ And I always remain thankful to you, for reading what I write, for visiting me here at my blog, for quoting me on the many things that I say and share with you. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. ♥

A short note written with happiness: My friend and "grampy" is so thoughtful and so kind enough to dedicate a post on his blog, just to me. He offered to write a post all for me and all about me, on his blog, because he genuinely wants to help me succeed as a writer. In this modern era, it is extremely difficult for authors to succeed. There is an astounding amount of competition, and authors have to pay people lots of money to promote them, so they can make book sales. I have been swamped by daily emails from companies and individuals and organizations offering promotional services for fees. There are so many things an author can do to become famous: we can pay someone to put an ad of us in the NY Times, we can pay someone to run an ad for us on major news networks, we can pay people to get us an interview on morning TV shows, we can pay people to get us a seat on Oprah, there are companies that we can pay to translate our books into scripts for making our stories into Hollywood movies! And so much more! I have become so overwhelmed by their efforts to make money off of me, that there's a time I seriously had to step away and try to regain my peace. In that time, I decided to remain in my own river, and to allow everyone else to jump into their swimming pools and lakes and puddles and what-nots and make loud splashes and play in their water, while I sit silently and do what I can, for myself. There's not so much I can do, really. I have a FaceBook page which I treat as my raw drafting pad, where my raw and unpolished newborn thoughts are first released, then I have a twitter account which reflects the posts I make on my FaceBook Page, and I have this blog, which I began keeping some years ago when I didn't realize it would turn into a writer's blog! Back then in that day, I simply used this blog to voice my opinions and write stories about what I did over the weekend!

What grampy has done for me- his offering to share to his own blog readers about me- touches me, because people don't really do that for anyone, anymore. I can't imagine anyone close to me doing that for me, really. Not even family members. People don't do that for me, unless I am going to offer to pay them. Like I said, I am overwhelmed by all the offers from people that promise they truly care about promoting my work but for a fee. I am so overcome by all of this, that; I have chosen to go by my own way and do my own thing. So for grampy to wholeheartedly offer to make this post for me, about me, is really a lot bigger deal than it may look like.

He told me that he never used to read poetry until he discovered my writings. I told him that is the greatest honor for me to hear, as a writer. I mean, there are a lot of writers who appeal to readers. But to hear that I appeal to non-readers is the greatest honor. This isn't the first time I've been told this. I've in fact been told this again and again. Over and over again. I think that the bulk of my readers, were not born readers, but they later were born in my hands. This is the greatest honor; a greater honor than selling a million copies of my book, a greater honor than being in all the bookstores all over the world, it's more than what I asked for. I can become disheartened when I look at how fast other authors shoot to the top in their sales and publicity, but then when I stop looking out there and stay still here in my river and look back at my original dreams, I can see that I have received and I have achieved far more than what I dreamt to have. I dreamt three things: 1. To make my own books, 2. For my books to be on people's bookshelves, and 3. For people to quote the things that I say and write, and live by them. All of my dreams have come true, and what's more, is people actually love what I write and that's something I didn't ask for.

I recently read a post by my blogger friend, Josep from Catalonia (whom, I might add, has been a supportive force in my writing since a long time ago, since around the first year I began keeping my writings on this blog). And in the post, I read this statement he quoted from an author, just to share the author’s thoughts with others (not necessarily a reflection of Josep’s own opinions on writing):

“When I’m traveling, and not alone at my desk, after a while I get depressed. I’m happy when I’m alone in a room and inventing. More than a commitment to the art or to the craft, which I am devoted to, it is a commitment to being alone in a room. [...] I need solitary hours at a desk with good paper and a fountain pen like some people need a pill for their health.” -- Orhan Pamuk

I simply feel compelled to share my story of how I write, after having read this, because it surprises me how I am so different as a writer, how my writing process is so different.

You see, if I am sitting in the middle of a crowded, wild, subway train, looking at all the different faces, all the varied expressions, listening to all the many foreign languages and voices and sounds from inside and from outside; the announcements, the feel of the jolting halts of the train on the tracks, all of these motions and sounds of life are what will inspire me to write characters, stories! This evidence of life and abundance of sound all around me is what’s going to propel me into understanding things I never understood before, see things that I never saw before (both literally speaking and metaphorically speaking), and become things that I wasn’t, before. My point is, I think I am a living writer. Not that other writers are all dead (although, yes a lot are dead already) but I think that I write from life. I’m not trying to escape anything, but I am trying to experience everything!

I shared this on my FaceBook page not so long ago: "I hope I don't write TOO many books! When I look at authors who have written too many books, I wonder to myself "When did they live?" I certainly want to write BECAUSE I live! I know I don't want to write in order to live! My writing is an overflow of the wine glass of my life, not a basin in which I wash out my ideals and expectations."

My words are born of life, born of noisiness, born in the solitudes of seemingly everlasting minutes that are made up of reflective moments when I find myself quite literally lost on the map! My sentences are born on the precarious curbs of busy highways, in the underground train stations, inside jam-packed buses. My written words are birthed on public benches and on lonely walks down unfamiliar alleys in foreign lands, they come into this world on the marble tiles at the Trevi Fountain and on the ancient Spanish Steps, they find their voices amongst the low hum-drum in crowded piazzas and marketplaces, they find their destinies in this world in the cold Parisian Spring breeze and in the chicken donor eateries lining the streets of London. My paragraphs are drafted on the yellow boulders on Portovenere and polished by the magic of ordinary days in my own kitchen and living room. My words are born of life and living and flying, and I never know what I’m going to say next! Because I never know until I’ve lived it!

XX

Just a note to all my readers and friends: after having revisions made to it's back cover, my novella will not be available for purchase until the revisions are made throughout all the copies of my book in circulation. This will take a few more weeks, and I am growing impatient (right now, you can't buy my book anywhere except on Amazon and CreateSpace) but I also think that its very efficient of them to re-design every single copy of my book out there. It would have been fine with me if they simply sold the existing copies (un-revised versions), but, they insist on every copy out there looking exactly the same ,so be it. Sorry for this delay, but in the meantime, you may purchase a copy of my book at CreateSpace or on Amazon. :)

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"I am a flawed person. A brook with many stones, a clear blue sky with many blackbirds. I have many shortcomings. A rainbow that’s not long enough, a starry night with clouds. But I can only be thankful to the God who loves me just this way, and I can only be grateful to the people in my life who accept the clear blue sky with many blackbirds and who are patient with the rainbow that isn’t long enough. And because of this, I am taught love, because of this I love my God, and I love these people."— C. JoyBell C.

DISCLAIMER

This blog is not an online diary. Anything reflected through my writings here, do not necessarily mirror my present emotional, mental, or physical state, unless directly stated. Furthermore, any resemblances to you or to anyone you know, is purely coincidental and is not a result of me creating any "blind items" about you or your loved ones and friends. Moreover, your reading of my writings does not constitute a marriage, personal relationship, or personal friendship, between us.